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Chevron Seam Tutorial: Sew Knits With A Straight Stitch

If you don’t like sewing knits with a zigzag stitch, why not sew a zigzag seam with a straight stitch! When I was designing Henry’s chevron knit shirt, I really wanted to play up the zigzag. I decided to add piecing with a chevron seam!

1. Make your pattern with a zigzag seam. A much bigger zigzag would be easier!
2. Cut out your fabric.
3. As you can see when you put right sides together, the angles are opposing each other. I pinned some corners first. Then I pinned the other corners which makes kind of a mess. Don’t worry!

4. When I sewed, I followed the chevron printed line. If you have two solid fabrics, you can just follow the edge.

5. It’s a little tricky while sewing because each time you get to a corner, you stop and pivot with your needle. You will also be pivoting the fabric opposite ways each time because the corners are opposing each other. (This is really hard to show in a photo!). I would recommend practicing this zigzag seam a couple of times before you use it. By my fourth seam, I was doing well, but my first seam was bad!

6. To make the seam lie flat you will need to trim and clip. I wanted my seam allowance pushed down, so I only cut the seam allowance that would be folded. In the corners where the seam allowance was pulling I clipped. In the corners where the seam allowance was bunching I trimmed.
7. Then I topstitching 1/8″ from the seam sewing all the seam allowances down.
8. IRON really well. This step is very important for you seam to look good!

You can see my seam is not quite perfect, but it adds to the fun boyishness of the shirt.

I also taped more chevron lines and drew with a fabric marker for interest. That is probably my favorite detail of this shirt!